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Hockey season in Northeastern Pennsylvania starts tonight when the Pittsburgh Penguins play a Black-Gold intrasquad game at the Mohegan Sun Arena.

A limited number of tickets are available for the 7:05 p.m. game. For more information, call Ticketmaster at 1-800-745-3000 or visit ticketmaster.com.

The game will be broadcast on WQMY-TV and 102.3-FM with Tom Grace and Phil Bourque calling the action.

Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma said that each team will use a 20-man roster tonight and that only a handful of players, perhaps as few as three, will be healthy scratches. Several players will be out due to injuries, of course, including Sidney Crosby (concussion), Dustin Jeffrey (knee), Robert Bortuzzo (knee) and Boris Valabik (knee).

"From a Wilkes-Barre standpoint, having been there, I think it's great for us to be going there and having them see an NHL exhibition game and see our players," Bylsma said.

RUNNING SCARED

Bylsma was asked if he planned to coach in the scrimmage, perhaps facing off against John Hynes to set up a battle between the NHL coach of the year and the AHL coach of the year.

"I'm scared of that, so I'm going to opt out and just make John coach," Bylsma joked. "I'm scared of that matchup."

SCRIMMAGE DETAILS

The Penguins held their second scrimmage of camp Sunday morning, with Team Letestu beating Team Malkin 2-1 in a shootout.

Rookie forward Brandon DeFazio stole a puck from defenseman Zbynek Michalek on the forecheck to set up a Zach Sill rebound goal and Eric Tangradi converted a pass from Jason Williams to tie the score with the goalie pulled in the final minute.

Brad Thiessen stopped 2 of 3 shots to win the shootout.

ROUGH START

Camp got off to a rough start for defenseman Brian Strait last week.

While driving from Connecticut to Pittsburgh to catch a flight to Oshawa for the rookie tournament last Thursday, Strait found that I-80 was closed near Bloomsburg due to flooding. He weaved his way down to I-81 near Harrisburg before picking up the Pennsylvania Turnpike. A trip that normally takes seven hours took 10 hours.

Then, in the first game of the rookie tournament, he took a puck to the face, opening a cut that required stitches to repair.

"It was a good couple of days," Strait said.

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